My Beast Slave Is Far Too Flirtatious - Chapter 4

Outside, Yun Lin knocked again.

“Yuan’er, I was indeed at fault that day. It doesn’t matter if you refuse to forgive me.” He paused. “I came only to tell you that I will owe you for the rest of my life.”

“Well, well. So he owes you, does he?”

The man’s taunting voice sounded beside my ear, so obnoxious that I wanted to beat him senseless.

I glared at him, warning him to shut up, but the look only awakened some perverse streak in him.

“Mistress, don’t worry that this slave will be jealous. I’ve always been generous. I’m not one of those petty men.”

He tore down a length of bed curtain, gathered his power, and sent it flying toward the door.

It was clearly no more than a strip of cloth, yet it seemed to come alive. It writhed nimbly through the air and pulled the bolted door straight open.

The instant the door opened, the red curtain fell to the ground, and a lean figure appeared before me.

Yun Lin wore black. Golden clouds embroidered at his collar glimmered faintly in the sunlight, while several whip marks crossed his exposed collarbone, lending him a fragile, wounded air.

He looked up at me. His narrow eyes brightened at once, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbed, and the gloom vanished from his face, leaving only joy in his brows and adoration in his eyes.

Then his peripheral vision caught the strange man beside me. The starlight in his eyes dimmed in an instant, and disgust mingled with all that affection.

Noticing the change, the man beside me began making trouble again.

He wrapped an arm around my waist and brushed the bridge of his high nose against my neck.

“Mistress should have a proper talk with Elder Brother. Don’t let this slave cause discord between you.”

His hoarse voice carried a lazy lilt, gentle enough to make me think he had been possessed by someone else.

But I had already seen the triumph in his eyes and the smug look he cast at Yun Lin.

He looked exactly like the vicious female rival from a storybook brought to life.

Not that he was competing for my affection.

From what I had learned of him these past two days, he was simply being a menace for the pleasure of it.

Yun Lin knew none of that. At the sight of us behaving so intimately, his already pale face went bloodless, as though every drop had been drained from his body in an instant.

I frowned slightly, all my displeasure gathering between my brows.

Don’t tell me this ungrateful cur had suddenly changed his mind and fallen hopelessly in love with me.

Beyond the courtyard, spring sunlight wove through the bamboo grove, scattering patches of light through the gaps.

A breeze swept past, rustling the bamboo leaves.

I stood opposite Yun Lin and studied his expression.

After only a few days apart, he seemed like a different man.

He looked more desolate than before, a bleak sorrow haunting his stern features. Yet when he looked at me, his eyes brimmed with joy and adoration.

How much of that joy and adoration was sincere, I could not say.

My gaze fell to his neck, where shocking whip marks extended down his back.

This was probably the handiwork of Shen Hao, who lived in my cousin’s quarters.

He was skilled with a whip and fiercely jealous, unable to tolerate the slightest rival.

Sending Yun Lin over without asking had likely offended him.

And my cousin was devoted to me. Yun Lin’s choice could only have angered her. Even if Shen Hao had not acted, she would have taught Yun Lin a lesson herself.

The fact that he could still stand before me meant they had plainly held back.

Though I had already guessed what happened, I asked anyway, “What happened to those wounds?”

“Punishment for abandoning my Mistress.”

Yun Lin tugged at his collar, trying to hide the marks, and his smile grew even more bitter.

The air between us cooled rapidly, and silence fell once more.

I had long been accustomed to that silence.

Yun Lin disliked speaking. Before he threatened to hurt himself, I had always been the one chattering endlessly at his side.

He neither acknowledged nor answered me, standing before me like a wooden post.

Just as he did now.

Yet something was still different.

In the past, he could not even be bothered to spare me a glance. Now he stared at me blankly, his heated gaze so uncomfortable that gooseflesh prickled across my skin.

Unable to bear it, I broke the stalemate first.

“You said you were returning to Yuncheng. What is that about?”

“I’m going back to visit my mother.” Yun Lin paused. “A secret letter said that man has been unwell lately. I want to see whether I can turn this chaos to my advantage.”

That man naturally meant the current Wolf King.

The wolf clan revered strength and paid little heed to rules of propriety, so Yuncheng’s system was chaotic. Regardless of birth, anyone with sufficient ability could seize the position of City Lord.

Yun Lin was alone and without support. Trying to usurp the throne amid the chaos would be harder than climbing to heaven.

No wonder he had said we might never meet again.

I lowered my gaze, unsure what to say.

Wish him a safe journey and swift success?

But I feared that once he became Wolf King, he would regard his years in Qingcheng as a humiliation and do everything in his power to strike at Qingcheng and the Liu family.

Yet I also feared that a new Wolf King might be brutal by nature and even harder to deal with than Yun Lin.

After all, our cities shared a border. Any change in one could affect the other.

What a headache.

As I worried, Yun Lin stepped forward. The jade pendant at his waist gave a clear chime, drawing my gaze down.

I studied it for a long moment before recognizing the twin-snake pendant I had given him when I was thirteen.

I had carved it myself. It was crude and ugly, the two intertwined snakes in the center resembling a pair of tangled earthworms, without the slightest beauty to them.

Ugly though the pendant was, it had been made from top-grade Hetian jade.

I had been obsessed with carving then. I would even pick up twigs from the roadside and try my knife on them.

Seeing how much I loved it, my mother simply gave me a whole chest of Hetian jade to play with.

I ruined the entire chest and produced only this ugly-cute pendant. Throwing it away seemed wasteful, but keeping it disgusted me, so I casually gave it to Yun Lin.

I had assumed he tossed it aside just as casually.

Instead, he had kept it to this day and even threaded a tassel through it to wear at his waist.

A shudder of revulsion went through me. I wanted nothing more than to dart forward, smash the pendant, and throw the pieces into the lake.

But Yun Lin’s gaze was so besotted that I wanted no intimate contact with him at all.

In the brief instant I was distracted, he came to stand before me.

His tall figure blocked my view, and the scent of cedar on him slipped into my nose.

I used to love that scent most of all.

Clean and elegant, like the open wilderness in winter.

Now it only sickened me.

Even the ambergris scent on that wretched man was better.

I tried to step back, but Yun Lin spoke in time to stop me.

“I was wrong.” His voice choked. “Yuan’er, if I return alive and offer you Yuncheng as my betrothal gift, will you forgive me?”

Had the whipping driven this man out of his mind?